Loving Cousin
by Wendy1
Summary: Roger returns to haunt Jon.


Loving Cousin  
by Wendy  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Tamora Pierce, and no infringement of her copyright is intended.  
  
Notes: Inspired by Mel, and late night Jon bashing.  
  
  
"Clever Nephew. If I were in your place, I'd never have let the girl in." Roger strode around the room, as Jon bent over his papers, ignoring the ghostly shade.  
  
"Go back to whatever realm you got rejected from, Roger. I've got things to do." Jon scribbled frantically.  
  
"Lady knights. Bad for business. Or, at least, bad for my business." Roger perched on the end of the table, cleaning imaginary fingernails with an imaginary dagger.  
  
"I'm glad Alanna killed you. Now, if you'd just stay dead..." Jon had risen to his feet, clutching his papers with white knuckles.  
  
Roger chuckled. "You would never have spoken to me whilst I was alive. Remember... I am your loving cousin, Roger."  
  
"The mad Conte Duke. Oh. I remember you well. You tried to kill my parents. Damn near succeeded. I'm still not certain..." Jon trailed off, as he noticed Alanna and Thayet frozen in the threshold.  
  
"Jon?" Thayet asked. Alanna moved swiftly into the room, sweeping her ever present sword from its sheath and holding the point low.  
  
  
"There's no one else here." Alanna looked toward Jon quizzically.  
  
"Just thinking out loud." He tried to laugh, but could hear Roger's incessant whispering.   
  
"Look. The lovely Queen Thayet the Peerless." He swept a mocking bow to her, before gliding behind her. "She is peerless, Jon. A real beauty. Nowhere near as lovely as Delia, but you ruined that for her, too -- didn't you, Jonathan."  
  
"I'll... stop now." Jon stared at Thayet as Roger kissed her cheek, sliding his hand down the front of her gown.  
  
"What is it, Jon?" Thayet moved towards Jon, leaving the provocative Roger pouting behind her. He mimed his disappointment for Jonathan's benefit and moved on to the Lioness.  
  
"Lovely to see you, Alanna. Still as vile and violent as ever. Violence won't solve all your problems, you know." He whispered something Jon didn't catch in her ear, and she swiped at the side of her face. "Bug," she said in explanation.  
  
"Council meeting. That's it." Jon muttered in answer to Thayet's question. "Just practising those speeches." He sat down again, gaining his composure as Gary, Raoul and Numair strode into the room.  
  
"War Council, is it, Jon?" As Roger watched the three tall men walk past, "With these young giants. Shouldn't Alex be with you? That's right." He walked close to Jon and sat beside him once more. "Alanna killed him too. I loved him like a son. Like you. Well, not as you loved Alex. He told me of your dirty secrets, late at night, in my library. He wished you loved him like you loved Alan."  
  
"Right. Situation of harvest - Gary, your report." Jon sat back, as Gary stood, shuffling around the piles of paper that seemed to grow in his presence. Jon didn't hear a word, as Roger was once more paying attention to Thayet. Roger kissed her lips this time, stroking her hair, and muttering back at Jon. "Bad blood here. I would have had her as my bride you know, if I had been successful."  
  
Jon bit his fist.  
  
"And of course, I would have enjoyed her screams. Not as well as I would have enjoyed Alanna's for daring to defy me. I'd be within my rights to have her tortured to death, you know. She did try - oh wait - she did kill me." Roger moved on.  
  
"Dear Raoul. Raoul is apparently the most respected knight in Tortall. You know different, don't you Jon. You held him after his first battle, remember, as he wept in your arms. You gave him the brandy, to steady his nerves. It steadied his nerves, all right." Roger stroked Raoul's cheek. "I don't know that the women ever got better. No matter how much you paid their families." He ran his fingers through Raoul's hair.  
  
"Strange how no one ever talks of that, whilst that poor squire is tortured by the Chamber." Roger smirked at Jon.  
  
"It wasn't like that. You know it wasn't like that." Jon was on his feet once more, Gary trailing off as he stared with astonishment at his King. "It was..." He became aware that everyone in the room was staring at him askance. He frantically groped for a logical explanation. "I'm sorry. I must have dozed off. Dreaming."  
  
Jon took a deep breath. "Maybe you should go. Reschedule. I'm really not feeling like myself."  
  
"Don't send them away, dear nephew. I was ready to tell you about the bedroom secrets of our Lioness here, how she and George call each other Majesty. And Numair. Sweet Numair. He knows me well -- did you know that." Roger grinned with all that implied. "Very supple is our man Draper. Ozorne could tell you of that -- oh, but wait. He's dead, too."  
  
Jon sat his head in his hands. "Stop. Just stop. I don't want to know," he cried, as thoughts of Alanna naked, and Numair wrapped around him in the Royal bed flashed through his head. "I don't want to hear."  
  
"But you must hear, my nephew." Roger's voice rode over the top of his friends' worried queries. "You must listen when I tell you that Gary blames you for his being chained to a desk. He would have loved to train the pages, or - goddess-forbid - be sent to war. He still doesn't trust you after Alanna. And Alanna, well she still pines for you when you have sent her husband to the furthest reaches of the realms."  
  
Jon sat numb, and listened to his dead cousin's tirade.  
  
"You claim a united kingdom. You claim an advantageous marriage for your children. You stopped your oldest daughter from doing the thing closest to her heart. You've destroyed your children's dreams, and you cannot trust your closest friends." Roger was in front of him now, and Jon slid out of his chair.  
  
He half-ran round the table, keeping it between him and Roger. "I'm not listening to you, Roger. You're the mad Conte Duke. You were crazed before you died, and now you've come to haunt me."  
  
His councillors huddled in a corner, and watched their previously sane king run around his council table, chased by no one. "Roger?" Thayet murmered.  
  
"His cousin. The one I killed." Alanna supplied. "He seems to think that Roger is haunting him."  
  
"He's dangerous, to himself and others," Gary muttered.  
  
"Numair, can you hold him? I think we should put him in an empty room until this episode is over." Raoul suggested. "There's a room in the top of one of the towers."  
  
"I know the one you mean. I can send him there," Numair said. "Now?" He looked to Thayet.  
  
She nodded. "You'd better."  
  
  
Three days later, the talking had not abated, and Jon had stopped protecting his guards from his thoughts. He argued day and night with the invisible man. Whispers spread from he palace that the King had gone mad, and Roald was brought back to the palace to see his father.  
  
Jon was a pitiful sight, huddled in the corner of the empty room, food dishes shattered against a wall. "I'm the better king. I'm the better king." He shouted it over and over, his voice hoarse and rough.  
  
"Is there any hope?" Roald asked the healers. They shook their heads. Just then Jon stuck his head through the bars on the door. Everybody jumped back.  
  
"Roald. My dear son. I'm not mad," Jon begged. "Let me out of here. It's Roger. He just won't leave me alone. I won't make you marry the princess unless you want to, and Kally can become a page."  
  
"Father. Sir. I hereby give you notice that due to your present state of mind, my mother, Queen Thayet and I will rule in your stead until you heal." Roald walked away, not looking back when the anguished yells echoed along the narrow stairway. "Noooooo!" 


End file.
